At last week’s leftist Netroots confab for Democrat liberals, the crowd was stoked by comments delivered by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, increasingly the hard-left’s version of Donald Trump: a populist iconoclast with a penchant for red-meat ideological issues.
So enamored was the crowd that a chant broke out which consisted of what may become the prophetic reality: “2020!”.
Warren, unlike any of her Senate colleagues, appears already to be setting the stage for such a reality.
With a campaign store that rivals Trump’s, she’s peddling prayer candles, action figures, coloring books and all sorts of paraphernalia emblazoned with her now telltale motto “She persisted.”
Warren appears now poised to assume the mantle of would-be first female president in a way Hillary Clinton could not.
She connects with her base amid impassioned speeches and a voting record that backs it up.
If she succeeds to fill the Democrat void, the 2020 contest could shape up to be a battle of the populists with voters in the center torn in the most polarizing election in history.
Here’s more from Politico…
Prayer candles. Action figures. Temporary tattoos. Coloring books.
Elizabeth Warren isn’t just a progressive icon, she’s a merchandising industry unto herself.
The Massachusetts senator and presidential prospect is at the center of a sprawling business built around her appeal to liberals across the country — a reminder of the unabashed devotion she inspires on the left and the footprint she’ll cast in the 2020 Democratic primary.
“Elizabeth Warren is an increasingly popular brand that people want to associate with,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “She’s the Apple of politics.”
It’s impossible to know the true size of the Warren merchandising-industrial complex. The bulk of it exists beyond the Democratic senator’s control on sites like online marketplace Etsy. And her campaign, which hosts its own online store, declined to disclose the exact amount of money it raises from merchandise sales.
But it’s safe to say no other senator has anything like it.
Warren’s campaign store has expanded beyond traditional political fare such as buttons, bumper stickers, tote bags and T-shirts to offer a line of products that capitalize on the “Nevertheless, she persisted” meme spawned by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s much-publicized admonishment of Warren on the Senate floor earlier this year.
